The present invention relates to flexible sheet material prepared from foamed polyurethane and exhibiting good wear resistance, making it suitable for such purposes as outer soles for footwear.
Reconstituted foam materials, in which cominuted foam is bonded together with a foamable binder, have been known for some considerable time and a method for their preparation has been described in British Pat. No. 976,260. These reconstituted materials are useful, for example, in packaging and upholstery.
More recently, materials of higher density have been produced, as described in our British Pat. No. 1,337,413, in which much of the cellularity of the comminuted foam is lost by reduction to a small particle size, and in which the binder exhibits little or no expansion due to the pressure under which the product is moulded. Such denser materials are employed, for example, for insoles in the footwear industry.